Security News > 2023 > January > JP Morgan must face suit from Ray-Ban maker after crooks drained $272m from accounts

A New York federal judge told JP Morgan Chase Bank this week that he would not toss a lawsuit accusing the bank of ignoring red flags when cybercrooks stole $272 million from the New York account of the company that makes Ray-Bans in 2019.

In an opinion and order filed on Wednesday [PDF], US District Judge Lewis Liman dismissed claims that JP Morgan breached its contract and was negligent, but said that the Thai manufacturing subsidiary of international eyewear company EssilorLuxottica, Essilor Manufacturing, can continue with a claim under New York contract law requiring banks to refund unauthorized payment orders from a customer.

He dismissed a claim under the same law by its international parent firm, as well as common law claims for both, although Judge Liman said the companies could file an amended complaint with redrafted breach of contract claims.

In the original complaint [PDF], the sunglasses maker said crooks made a total of 243 fraudulent payments, altogether pulling out a cool $272.151 million from EMTC's New York account with JP Morgan.

JP Morgan had earlier claimed, in its attempt to get the lawsuit dismissed, that Essilor couldn't maintain a claim against it under New York law "Because it was not the 'sender' of the payment orders and thus cannot obtain a refund." In this week's order, the court also declined to dismiss the complaint as "Time barred." The bank said in a July 2022 motion [PDF] that the manufacturer filed the suit in April 2022, more than two years after the last fraudulent wire transfer in December 2019.

Just months after the transfers took place in 2019, Essilor said it had been the victim of a cyberattack on its group servers and computers, and claimed to have isolated the infected servers and installed software patches "With the support of leading external antivirus experts." A spokeswoman with the Franco-Italian eyewear group told Reuters at the time: "The malware is a new type of virus. Essilor took immediate action... to prevent the spread of the malware."

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